The Busybody

Just as cooks pray for a good crop of young animals and fishermen for a good haul of fish, in the same way busybodies pray for a good crop of calamities or a good haul of difficulties that they, like cooks and fishermen, may always have something to fish out and butcher. (Plutarch, "On Being a Busybody")

Saturday, April 29, 2006

The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave

Robert Price's The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave is a collection of essays from the skeptic's corner, containing much to agree with, much to dispute, as each contributor deals with the resurrection inquiry in some way. Peter Kirby has an essay refuting the authenticity of the empty tomb; Richard Carrier has a lengthy essay, also arguing that the empty tomb was a legend coming later than Paul's two-body doctrine of the resurrection, and then a shorter article arguing that if the empty tomb were authentic it is plausible to assume Jesus' body was stolen. Keith Parsons writes about the plausibility of hallucination theories; Jeffrey Jay Lowder argues for the relocation of Jesus' corpse to a second tomb. Then there is an extremely polemical piece by editor Robert Price -- called "By This Time He Stinketh: The Attempts of William Lane Craig to Exhume Jesus" -- bemoaning the influence of neo-conservative scholarship, insisting that William Lane Craig is a menace both to scholarship and the commonweal.

There are more essays (fifteen total), but for now I'll focus on four which particularly grabbed my attention: two by Richard Carrier, one by Keith Parsons, one by Robert Price. It's a sizeable enough agenda for one review/post.

"The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb" (Richard Carrier)

Carrier's first essay on the legend of the empty tomb is unconvincing as it is long, propped up by an unlikely hypothesis of Paul's view of the resurrection: that Jesus rose in a different body completely distinguished from the old. I want to focus on this two-body idea, because Carrier offers the most thorough treatment of it I've ever read. He begins by trying to pinpoint the source of the Corinthians' objections and concerns:

"If the corpse of Jesus remained on earth, it is easy to see how some [of the Corinthians] might [have] come to believe his resurrection was peculiar, in a way ours could not be. It is possible some decided his resurrection was only metaphorical or that it was simply a necessary consequence of his divinity -- just as God lived without a body before the incarnation, so obviously he would afterward. And we are not gods, so we cannot count on the same fate. Whatever their particular interpretation was, like these, it must have made our own resurrection somehow dubious. Only that would make any sense of Paul's reply. So now their specific worry becomes explicable: If Christ didn't get back his old body, how are we going to live without ours? Paul's answer is: We get a new body." (pp 121-122)

Carrier, in other words, has the Corinthians worrying about a bodiless fate. But this was compatible with the things they'd always believed. Even more to the point, Paul's answer ("we get a new body"), in its simplest and unelaborated form, would have already been taught to them. It's simply incredible that Paul wouldn't have initially mentioned anything about the "new body", whether that of Jesus or those of believers.

I think it's clear from Paul's language that the Corinthians accepted Jesus' resurrection from the old corpse, yet wondered, on the basis of old-beliefs-die-hard, if this would really end up being true for themselves. After all, he says, "Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?" (I Cor 15:12), presupposing that everyone already accepts Christ has been raised -- and raised "from the dead", or from the old corpse.

Carrier, as expected, leans heavily on the two passages which have been pressed into service of sharply distinguishing a new spiritual body from the old physical. Taking the first, "It is sown a natural body, and it is raised a spiritual body" (I Cor 15:44):

"There are two subjects in that last clause, hence two bodies. That two distinct bodies are meant is clear in 15:46 and the final clause of 15:44. Paul is saying the earthly flesh that is sown is dishonorable and weak and subject to decay, but what rises is glorious powerful, and immortal. And he captures all this in his concluding dichotomy between two fundamentally different bodies: a biological body and a spiritual body... If Paul meant that one body would be changed into the other, he would say so. He would not use analogies that he has, which all entail different things, not changes from one living thing into another. Likewise he would use appropriate grammar (e.g. "that which is sown is raised"), but he doesn't." (pp 127-128)

Too many commentators have pointed out, however, that the metaphor of a seed sprouting (I Cor 15:38ff) supports the idea of an old body transforming into a new one. The two subjects ("it, it") refer to the same essential entity.

For the infamous second statement, "Neither flesh nor blood can inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable" (I Cor 15:50), Carrier declares:

"Flesh and blood goes away, to corruption and decay. Period. Flesh does not receive immortality. It cannot receive it. That is why there must be a new, different body, one capable of immortality... Christ is now a pneuma and has a pneumatic body, unlike the body of Adam, which was made of the flesh and blood formed from the dirt of the earth... Paul says such things are perishable, and they cannot enter heaven, so they cannot have any place in the resurrection. And he clearly says, contrary to Luke, that the risen Christ is a spirit." (pp 134-135)

Furthermore, says Carrier, against Wright's claim that Paul was using spirit as an adjective of relation as opposed to material -- that Paul was speaking of a pneuma-driven, or pneuma-powered, body:

"Contra Wright, the distinction between -ikos (adjectives of relation) and -inos (adjectives of material) is not so clear-cut, especially in Koine, as even he admits... The context decides, and our context clearly indicates substances are the issue: sarx versus pneuma, different kinds of flesh, astral bodies versus terrestrial ones... We can therefore reject all gospel material emphasizing the physicality of Christ's resurrection as a polemical invention." (pp 129, 135)

It's true that Paul didn't express himself well in I Cor 15:50, but Carrier's "period!" shouldn't come at the end of this verse, rather three verses later, when Paul qualifies with the idea that the perishable body itself "must put on imperishability" (15:53), again implying continuity. "Flesh and blood" is simply a loose (and admittedly confusing) way of referring to an ordinary human body as yet unchanged. Wright gets a lot of things wrong, but he's at least somewhat on the right track about this.

From this point Carrier proceeds to the second half of his essay and argues that the empty tomb was a legendary development after Paul, made to square with later gospel reports of a more physical resurrection. I don't think Carrier is any more persuasive here than he is with Paul's supposed two-body hypothesis, but I'll leave it alone and proceed to Carrier's second essay, about which I can say good things.

"The Plausibility of Theft" (Richard Carrier)

In this shorter essay Carrier assumes the opposite conclusion of what he argued previously: if the empty tomb were historical, then Jesus' body may have been stolen.

Indeed, it may well have been. Grave-robbing was common enough in antiquity, and necromancers especially valued the body parts of holy men and/or crucified men; Jesus was both. There's obviously no way to rule out other ideas (Jesus' corpse being moved to another tomb, the disciples stumbling on the wrong tomb, etc.), but the grave-robbing explanation remains a strong candidate. Carrier makes interesting analogies to the rumor of theft reported in Mt 28:15, suggesting that Matthew blames the rumor on conspiracy ("the Jews' desire to conceal the truth") in the same way that the Heaven's Gate cult blamed the argument against their imminent spacecraft on a conspiratorial earth traitor (pp 356-357). And just as Matthew accuses Jews of paying off guards, the survivors of Jonestown accused the government of fabricating evidence and paying off forensic doctors to fabricate evidence which made them look bad.

The upshot is that Carrier's short essay on "the plausibility of theft" is a better piece than his lengthy article preferring legend which rests, in turn, on an incorrect interpretation of Paul's view of the resurrection. Less is more with Carrier, though Michael Turton evidently prefers the argument for legend.

Keith Parsons accounts for the New Testament appearances of Jesus in terms of visions, or as he prefers, hallucinations. In responding to Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli's thirteen objections to the hallucination hypothesis (argued in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics), he successfully refutes ten arguments, but not three.

(1) Kreeft and Tacelli: "There were too many witnesses; hallucinations are private." Parsons says this ignores the phenomenon of mass delusions (pp 435-438).

(2) K&T: "The witnesses were qualified -- simple, honest, and moral, who had firsthand knowledge of the facts." Not only do the gospels portray the disciples as disloyal and dense, it's equally true that honest and moral people are perfectly susceptible to hallucinations (p 439).

(3) K&T: "The five hundred saw Christ together, at the same time and place." But this may have been a collective vision (see (1)) (p 440).

(4) K&T: "Hallucinations usually last a few seconds or minutes; rarely hours. Jesus hung around for forty days (Acts 1:3)." This naively assumes a literal forty-day period in which "Jesus" was continuously present (p 441).

(5) K&T: "Hallucinations usually happen only once, except to the insane." This claim is simply unfounded (p 441).

(6) K&T: "Hallucinations come from within, from what we already know and expect. Jesus did unexpected things, like a real person and not a dream." A bizarre claim: in dreams and visions many unexpected things occur (p 442).

(7) K&T: "Not only did the disciples not expect this, they didn't believe it at first; they initially thought he was a ghost." This not only begs the question by assuming a vision cannot overcome skepticism, it's a common rhetorical tactic of religious believers to claim they began as skeptics until later convinced of the "truth" (p 443).

(8)/(9)/(10) K&T: "Hallucinations do not eat."/"Hallucinations cannot be touched."/"Hallucinations cannot be heard." All are unfounded claims (p 444).

(11) K&T: "The apostles could not have believed in the hallucination if the corpse had still been in the tomb." A smoke-and-mirrors (ultimately empty) objection (pp 445-447).

(12) K&T: "If the apostles had hallucinated and then spread the story, the Jews would have stopped it by producing the body." That depends on the corpse's state of decay (p 448).

(13) K&T: "A hallucination would explain only the appearances; it would not explain the empty tomb; only the resurrection explains both." Point-counterpoint: that's like saying only real ETs explain all phenomena associated with UFO sightings (p 448).

For full elaborations on these rebuttals see the pages cited. Most of them are solid, save (3), (8), and (13). Objection (3) is more valid than Parsons allows, since documented cases report less than ten people experiencing the same hallucination at the same time; certainly not crowds of hundreds. Objection (8) also appears to be valid; reported apparitions do not eat or drink. Parsons may be conscious of the difficulty since he tries dealing with (8) (9) and (10) all as a single objection, but while testimony abounds for tangible and audible visions, that's not true for eating/drinking visions. Objection (13) carries weight only on the assumption that there was no cognitive dissonance in place which could have (easily) caused the disciples to make any outlandish claim they wanted, regardless of whether or not there was an empty tomb. But without cognitive dissonance (i.e. if, for the disciples, expectations hadn't yet been shattered) the objection is more valid than Parsons allows. [When I originally wrote this review, I'd finished proof-reading Dale Allison's manuscript for Resurrecting Jesus, in which he raises similar counters to these three objections and deals with them better than Parsons does. Now, of course, Allison's book is available.]

On the whole, I agree with what Parsons is getting at. There is nothing unlikely about the appearances of Jesus being "hallucinations", whether those described by Paul or the more explicitly tangible ones by the gospel writers. I would use the term to refer to apparitions occasioned by grief or trauma over the recently deceased. Gerd Ludemann has been the champion of this view, and Dale Allison explored the possibility by going even deeper into this territory.

"By This Time He Stinketh: The Attempts of William Lane Craig to Exhume Jesus" (Robert Price)

Price's diatribe against William Lane Craig will amuse the irreverent and anger the pious. For me it was mildly off-putting. Price declares that biblical scholarship is in dire straits, with the ever increasing influence (as he sees it) of the more conservative wing: "Craig may well be correct that NT scholarship is more conservative than it once was. This has more than he admits to do with which denominations can afford to train the most students, hire more faculty, and send more members to the SBL...Is this trend toward neo-conservatism an enlightenment? Rather, I regard it as a prime example of what H.P. Lovecraft bemoaned as the modern failure of nerve in the face of scientific discovery." (p 412). This strikes me as paranoid, and I don't quite see neo-conservatives dominating the field of NT scholarship to the extent Price does. What about the influence of the Jesus Seminar? Burton Mack and Jonathan Smith? More feminist scholars? Biblical studies, if anything, seems to be more diversified than ever these days.

Furthermore, the rise of neo-conservative influence in some quarters has brought as much good news as bad. The early Christians had many beliefs conducive to "conservative" thinking, for better or worse, and scholars like (say) Bauckham and McKnight can certainly appreciate this more than a quaint Bultmannian.

To top it off, Price concludes his screed against Craig with the worst topic he could have chosen -- by going down the same avenue as Richard Carrier with a quasi-gnostic interpretation of Paul's view of the resurrection, laced with trademark rhetoric and contempt for his dialogue partner. I don't particularly like being a defender of William Lane Craig, but here Emperor Price has no clothes. Others, however, may think Price's rhetoric and idiosyncratic ideas make for some entertaining reading (like Michael Turton).

Conclusion

This is an important collection of essays which should be on the shelf of anyone interested in the resurrection. Studies from the last few years have been impressive. Wright's Resurrection of the Son of God ('03) is good for understanding what resurrection meant to the early Christians, though perhaps not for its apologetics. Ludemann's Resurrection of Christ ('04) is a fair counter to some of Wright, though it doesn't offer the most comprehensive treatment of hallucinations/apparitions. Dale Allison's Resurrecting Jesus ('05) is of course the best study to date. The Empty Tomb supplements the Wright-Ludemann-Allison trilogy with verve and covers a lot of important ground.

Friday, April 28, 2006

Fessing Up: What was Morton Smith's Payoff?

Over a fun Wednesday lunch, Stephen Carlson (who was passing through town) and I talked about why Morton Smith never admitted to fabricating Secret Mark. If he created Clement's letter for the reasons Stephen thinks, one would expect him to have fessed up in order to prove how smart he was.

Recall Carlson's distinction between forgeries and hoaxes:

"While the circumstances surrounding Secret Mark do not support the conclusion that it is a criminal forgery done to defraud, that does not exhaust the possibilities of its being a twentieth-century fake. Secret Mark could also be a hoax. Although hoaxes share with forgeries the element of creating a document with the intention to deceive, hoaxes are done with a different motive -- to test the establishment, whether to expose flaws in the gatekeepers of authenticity, to exhibit one's skill and cunning, or to take pleasure in the failure of self-appointed experts to pass the test." (Gospel Hoax, p 78)

On my earlier list of Top 20 Literary Hoaxes, I made no distinction between forgeries and hoaxes (since by most definitions they're often the same thing), though I distinguished between motives involving profit, attention-grabbing, or ideological-support (Carlson's "forgeries") and pranking/testing (Carlson's "hoaxes"). I confess that Stephen's terminology has grown on me for these motive factors.

Reason being, forgers don't want to get caught while hoaxers ultimately do. That's their payoff: not money or ideology, but satisfaction from showing the world how superiorly clever they are. That's why Dionysius, the "Ern Malley" authors, and Alan Sokol (#’s 6, 11, & 15 on my list) came clean. The fallibility or gullibility of others goes unnoticed unless the hoaxer eventually fesses up. But Morton Smith never fessed up. Does this undermine Carlson's (and Donald Akenson's) claim that Secret Mark was fabricated, above all, for the sake of testing scholars and having a good laugh?

Stephen was asked this question by Steve Shoemaker, whose radio interview is archived online (see Nov 27, '05). Stephen's response squares with what he hints at by way of irony on p 86 of Gospel Hoax: it was Smith's friends who ended up "running with Secret Mark", while his enemies refused to be taken in by it. ("If Smith was motivated partly by malice against his opponents, it is ironic that exposure of Smith’s hoax may end up hurting mainly those who trusted him." p 86) Smith, in other words, created more of a monster than he'd ever bargained for. With fellow-liberals like Koester devoting their careers to Secret Mark, how could he have played into enemy hands by undermining their scholarly credibility?

Then too we should bear in mind that not all pranksters reveal themselves in the long run, and Smith may not be as exceptional as initially supposed. No one disputes Paul Coleman-Norton's prank (#20 on my list), but he never fessed up either. Perhaps, in the end, Coleman-Norton and Smith had a sense of shame after all.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Christ is the Question

The new book by Wayne Meeks, Christ is the Question, has some ringing endorsements, including one from Bart Ehrman:

"Witty, perceptive, learned, and wise, this is not just another book about the historical Jesus; it is a masterly reflection by a master scholar with four decades of scholarship behind him. For Wayne Meeks, the question of who Christ is cannot be resolved by post-enlightenment scientific historical investigation (the advent of which he sketches with verve and insight). For him, this historical Jesus is the Jesus who 'makes history', as he has been understood by his followers over the centuries and in our own day."-- Bart D. Ehrman, Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina

"Written with Wayne Meeks's customary clarity and power, Christ is the Question will engage and benefit both the church and the academy-all who care about Jesus and about the way his image is used and misused in the world today."-- Susan R. Garrett, Professor of New Testament, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

"In this explosive book Wayne Meeks shows the way beyond both liberal and conservative readings of the New Testament. This book is an intervention that does what all truly important books do: it entirely changes the conversation."-- Cyril O'Regan, Huisking Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame

Meeks apparently wants us to dispense with the historical quest, believing that Jesus is lost and unfixed to the extent that he can only be located as "a figure whose identity continues to emerge as contemporary persons engage him in their daily lives" (publisher's description). Meeks may find William Arnal to be an ally of sorts. In The Symbolic Jesus Arnal recently concluded that the search for the historical Jesus should be abandoned because the "symbolic Jesus" is what ultimately matters, even in historical research, whether or not people realize it. I'll have more to say about this after I read Christ is the Question, and I may review Meeks' book alongside Arnal's if there are enough commonalities for comparative purposes. I don't accept that the quest for the historical Jesus should be abandoned, even if Meeks and Arnal light on plenty of reasons to make us wonder if reasonable objectivity is attainable.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

The Luminous Dusk

"For millennia humans knew the stars as well as they knew their own backyards. Yet many of us have lost both this and other vital connections with our natural world, and so have in many ways lost our sense of wonder.

"In the thoughtful, genre-bending nonfiction tradition of Wendell Berry and Walker Percy, Dale Allison charts the effects of loss of wonder in Western society. Drawing on insights from ancient creation myths to the popularity of cartoon animals, he highlights our ongoing disconnection from the cosmos, tracing its spiritual and philosophical impact. In eight elegant and profound essays, The Luminous Dusk calls readers to a life of sustained wonder, open to the divine and connected to the creation, a life that chooses divine ascent over our culture's reflexive mediocrity."

Friday, April 21, 2006

Success and Disintegration in Biblioblogdom

Prompted by Jim West’s concern about a "disintegration of the biblioblogging community", Chris Heard, Chris Weimer, Ed Cook and Mark Goodacre each address the situation as he sees it. Jim seems to be more concerned about a decline in the interactivity between bloggers than in biblioblogdom per se.

To an extent, the two are inversely related. Many have mentioned the exponential growth of our biblioblogging community, and it does seem that for everyone who goes on blogging sabbatical (like Michael Turton and Alan Bandy) there are three or four new faces who come along to fill the void. I myself haven't noticed a major decrease in the interactions between bloggers, but some is no doubt due to this astronomical growth. The rise of biblioblogdom makes it harder to keep up with everything going on. "Victims of our own success", Mark? Too true.

"Peter Jeffery's book proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Morton Smith forged the discovered text. It demonstrates that he had the scholarly expertise, the wit, the sense of humor, and above all the motivation to do so."

Evidently some of the book's arguments complement those in Stephen's Gospel Hoax, though Jeffery approaches the hoax from a musician's angle, which is curious. Stephen cites an article from The Daily Princetonian:

"Jeffery... approached the text from his perspective as a musical historian and conclusively refuted it. Because 'everything it says about the early Christian liturgy is utterly nonsensical, it can't be made to fit into the history,' he said. [He] said that it took more than 30 years to debunk the text because the study of rituals is complicated, involving a high degree of non-textual interpretation."

It will make for interesting reading, that's for sure. Poor Morton Smith: only in death does his last laugh really pay off.

Interesting post-script to the article: Jeffery apparently sued the Smashing Pumpkins for damaging his hearing at a concert. For some reason that doesn't surprise me. When I used to listen to the Smashing Pumpkins on a walkman I remember having to turn the volume way down. Great band, but painful at high decibels.

Self Deception

See Daniel Gilbert's article in the New York Times, "I'm Okay, You're Biased" (thanks to Matt Bertrand for the link). It mentions some studies on self-deception, noting, among other things, that

"By uncritically accepting evidence when it pleases us, and insisting on more when it doesn't, we subtly tip the scales in our favor."

No kidding. Those unsympathetic to traditional Christianity have been swallowing Michael Baigent's (/Dan Brown's) nonsense with a vengeance (see here), and it's only going to get worse after the release of The DaVinci Code film. Meanwhile, the enthusiasm -- even in scholarly circles -- for Tom Wright's "resurrection evidence" has been no less astounding. We know that lack of precedent has never been an obstacle to religious creativity, yet people continue parroting Wright just the same: "no ancient Jew would have claimed that a messiah was raised before the end, unless he really was". I'm not saying that Wright is generally comparable to Baigent, but on this particular point he is, and the massive followings garnered by each on the basis of pseudo-evidence or -logic point to the self-deception phenomenon mentioned in Gilbert's article. We take what's pleasing to us, however bogus the evidence (Baigent), however greasy the logic (Wright).

I love this part:

"Because the brain cannot see itself fooling itself, the only reliable method for avoiding bias is to avoid the situations that produce it."

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

DaVinci Beliefs

According to a recent poll, 17% of Canadians and 13% of Americans believe that Jesus' crucifixion was faked, and that he married and had kids, just like Dan Brown tells in The DaVinci Code:

"Andrew Grenville, the polling firm's senior vice-president, said he was shocked that many Canadians believe the death of Jesus was faked. He said the number was particularly surprising considering only 10% of Canadians identify themselves as atheist or agnostic.

" 'I would have expected a lot of people to say Jesus never existed, or Jesus was just some guy, but to say the death was faked and he had kids is a very firm position to take. It speaks to the power of storytelling.' "

I think these figures will only increase after the movie comes out next month. Film is a very powerful medium.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Wolf Creek

Slasher films have to be the worst genre in the filmmaking industry, but I was pleasantly surprised by Greg McLean's Wolf Creek, a vicious account of three post-college friends who take a road trip across Australia to a murderously unhappy ending. The critics are almost evenly divided at Rottentomatoes (52% approve). Liz Braun, representing those who "have no affection or respect" for slasher films, grudgingly admits there are at least some good things about the film. Spence D. says the convincing terror makes the film an "interactive experience, something so few of the horror films tossed out onto the public ever achieve". This is quite true: most slashers, especially the lame PG-13 variety, involve the victimizing of teenage air-heads whom we actually want to see get killed for their stupidity, yet they manage to prevail against their tormenter anyway. Wolf Creek involves us with sympathetic characters whose pain and terror becomes our own, and the story does not have a happy ending.

On the negative side, Tyler Hanley opines that "viewers eager to embrace 90 minutes of footage featuring women being brutalized, beaten, stalked and slaughtered may want to consider some serious introspection". Such judgmentalism is misplaced: a good horror film is supposed to be nasty. Roger Ebert gives an amazing "zero-star" rating, complaining about the film's supposed misogyny and "sadistic celebration of pain and cruelty". James Berardinelli rightly counters Ebert:

"To slam Wolf Creek as a 'sadistic celebration of pain and cruelty' (as Roger Ebert did) is to misunderstand the genre. That description, loaded though it may be, could be used to describe more than 50% of the horror movies to have come along since Halloween re-invented the genre in the late 1970s... If the film evokes squeamishness, it has done its job. You're not supposed to sit through a film like this placidly munching popcorn. The reaction is intended to be visceral."

What I liked about Wolf Creek is that nothing bad or scary happens at all during the first half of the film. It's just a tour of the Australian Outback, taking in the sights, enjoying the friends' camaraderie. Most films bring on the horror too early, and on undeveloped characters we aren't even given time to care about. McLean takes 52 minutes to warm up, ominously building tension, and when hell finally breaks loose we feel the victims' pain with a vengeance. I was left very disturbed.

Wolf Creek isn't Hitchcockian in achievement, by any means, but it does what a film like this is supposed to do, tapping into our fears about psychopaths on a serious level. If you like to be frightened but have given up on the slasher genre, give it a try. Here's the film's website.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Resurrection

"Either God raised Jesus from the dead, or the disciples somehow got the job done in their imaginations. If it was God, then the Deity thought that crucifixion was not the appropriate finale to the story of Jesus, that something in his history cried out for a different ending. If, however, it was the disciples who, through deceit or self-deception, raised Jesus into Christian mythology, then clearly they felt the same way: something was wrong with death having the last word with their master, so they persuaded themselves and others that it had not. In either case, whether it was God or the disciples, crucifixion was deemed to be the wrong denouement. Resurrection was needed." (Dale Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, p 215)

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Penal Substitution and Atonement in General

"Atonement theories confirm two fundamental and universal instincts about life and divinity: the belief that nothing is free, that there must be give-and-take in the spiritual economy as there is in the material; and secondly, the intuition that ritual establishes order... The problem is not what all this says about Jesus but what it says about God: if God wants to save, why is such intercession necessary? Why should Jesus' pleading for humanity only be effective after he had been murdered? It does us no good to perceive Jesus as heroic if we are forced to view God as sadistic." (Stephen Finlan, Problems with Atonement, pp 80,97)

The idea of penal substitution is peripheral to the New Testament. Two books which should be required reading for the origins of atonement doctrine are Stephen Finlan's The Background and Content of Paul's Cultic Atonement Metaphors and its sequel Problems with Atonement. Finlan distinguishes between four understandings of Christ's death found in the New Testament: martyrdom, sacrifice, scapegoat, and ransom redemption. None of these really involves the idea of penal substitution where Christ supposedly "stands in" for others.

1. Martyrdom. Christ dies as an example to be followed (Gal 2:19; Rom 6:6-7,11; I Pet 2:21,4:1-2).

Neither martyrs (1) nor scapegoats (3) were substitutes. The former were examples to be followed, and the latter were sin carriers. Scapegoats were not sacrifices, a point emphasized repeatedly by Finlan. They were opposite in every way: sacrifices pure and offered to God, scapegoats impure and driven out to a demon.

Sacrifices (2) involved substitution, though not in a penal sense. A sacrifice didn't "stand in" for the offender, but appeased God's wrath in a propitiary sense. It was a monetary substitution (or "food bribe"), buying off God more than anything, and closer to the satisfaction model introduced in the 11th century, based as it was on honor-shame values. Moreover, the propitiary aspect of sacrifice is only half the picture: a sacrifice was also expiatory, in the sense that blood was a cleansing agent on its own right. The expiatory dimension to sacrifice wasn't about any kind of substitution, let alone penal.

Ransom redemption (4) involved substitution, though as a monetary transaction; it had nothing to do with penal substitution.

The only passage in the New Testament which possibly evokes penal substitution is I Pet 2:24b (cited by Michael), which owes to Isa 53:4-5, "by his wounds we are healed". This may indicate that Christ, like Israel's servant, died in place of others. Aside from this one text, however, there is nothing in the NT pointing to Christ's death as a penal substitute.

The lesson here is that the NT writers used and blended many metaphors of Christ's death so that "any one metaphor, by itself, would be misleading" (Finlan, Problems with Atonement, p 66). If there is a prime metaphor, it's martyrdom, which provides the platform for the others. But from the second century onward, church thinkers started to use a single atonement metaphor under which other ideas were subordinated. These were ransom redemption (the "Orthodox" view), satisfaction (the "Catholic" view), and penal substitution (the "Protestant" view). Each understanding moved further away from the biblical metaphors:

1. Ransom Redemption. God tricks the devil by offering Jesus as a ransom payment to free humanity from his influence, and Satan is foiled by the resurrection. (Origen, Augustine, Gregory the Great; dominant theory in the 2nd-10th centuries)

2. Satisfaction. Christ dies in the place of humanity, in order to satisfy the demands of God's honor. (Anselm; dominant theory in the 11th-15th centuries)

3. Penal Substitution. Christ dies in the place of humanity, in order to satisfy the demands of God's justice. (Luther, Calvin; dominant from the 16th century onwards)

The ransom redemption theory is based on NT understanding (#4 above), though it introduces deceit into the picture. The satisfaction theory is an honor-shame understanding (reflecting the feudal structure of medieval times) and thus has affinities with the biblical view of sacrifice. The penal substitution theory is the most popular today, but least biblical, as it answers individualist concerns about guilt and innocence.

Whatever its theological merits, I see almost no biblical basis for the penal substitution model. And I'm not sure it's superior to the other two in any case. They get at the same idea, just under the trappings of different value systems.

Is Atonement essential to Christianity?

According to Finlan, the Incarnation is the central doctrine of Christianity, but atonement is something Christianity can (and should) do without. In place of atonement -- and anything relating to blood sacrifice -- he suggests the principle of theosis, whereby "the Word became man so that you might learn from man how man may become God" (Problems with Atonement, p 121). Not that Finlan advocates gnosticism -- far from it: "Those who teach that every person is as divine as Christ is (such as the gnostic gospel of Philip) lose sight of the Incarnation, and cannot really be called Christian" (ibid, p 4; my emphasis). He advocates what orthodox thinkers like Athanasius and Clement of Alexandria maintained, that people may be deified on account of the "the Word becoming man". Says Finlan further:

"Theosis has a biblical basis, and this should not be forgotten. There is the promise that 'you may become participants of the divine nature' (II Pet 1:4); there is the command to become perfect, Godlike (Mt 5:48); there are the prophecies of doing greater things than Jesus did (Jn 14:12) and of revelations yet to be seen (Jn 1:51). Theosis means each person incarnating divinity in his or her small way, inspired by the direct Incarnation of divinity that took place in Galilee and Judea." (pp 121-122)

As a Unitarian I'm hardly qualified to say whether or not dispensing with atonement theories amounts to a betrayal of Christianity. But the principle underlying theosis is one I can certainly endorse. To forgive freely -- truly freely, without any give-and-take in between -- is one of the hardest things to do, and divine indeed.

Friday, April 14, 2006

The Show Trial of Good Friday

"Jesus was never tried to determine his innocence or guilt... In a show trial, the guilt of the person being 'tried' has already been determined. There is no effort to weigh evidence, nor is there a defense of the offender. Show trials are conducted under the firm control of the state; there is no independent judiciary. The procedure does not conform to laws but follows the expedient will of power elites. Some ad hoc body of accusers stands in place of a jury, and its members belong to the same ruling class as the accusers. A show trial is not a legal process but a political process whose purpose is the public degradation and humiliation of an enemy of the state before his foreordained conclusion." (William Herzog, Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God, pp 240-241)

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

The Future of Libraries

Friday, April 07, 2006

Baigent and Tabor

Michael Baigent is an embarassment wherever you look. He lost his lawsuit against Dan Brown, as foreordained, and continues making a fool of himself in The Jesus Papers. Laura Miller of Salon.com -- a gift from the review-gods -- explains a few things here, contrasting Baigent's Papers with James Tabor's recently-released Jesus Dynasty. I'm not wild about Tabor's book, but almost anything serves as an antidote to Baigent.

From the review (click past the ad to read the full thing):

"The most intriguing discovery to be found in The Jesus Papers will probably only interest those of us who pursue the odd and somewhat pitiful hobby of crank-watching; it's finally clear from reading this book that it was Baigent -- rather than co-authors Leigh and Henry Lincoln -- who actually wrote Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The voice, which grows more and more authoritative in tone as the foundations of its arguments dissolve into piffle, is unmistakable... The style of The Jesus Papers, a masterly counterpoint of bluster, false humility and self-righteousness, matches that of Holy Blood, Holy Grail like a fingerprint. ..

"In ambition and organization, The Jesus Papers can't hold a candle to Holy Blood, Holy Grail, but because it's a less seamlessly constructed edifice of bunkum, it gives you a clearer picture of how Baigent et al. managed to hoodwink millions of readers...

"Readers who have only recently learned, via The Da Vinci Code, of the complicated history of the New Testament, are much better served by books like James Tabor's [The Jesus Dynasty] than by conspiracy-mongering like The Jesus Papers. Like Baigent, [Tabor] doesn't believe in the literal truth of the resurrection, but unlike Baigent, he keeps his religious beliefs to himself...

"Like all efforts to re-create historical events from the New Testament, The Jesus Dynasty is by necessity highly interpretive and contestable, but it's certainly more grounded than the fantasies of The Jesus Papers. Tabor is primarily interested in recovering the history of Jesus' immediate family -- his mother, four brothers and two sisters -- who, he maintains, played a far more important role in the young religious movement than is generally known...

"If [Tabor's] book can't win at least a few readers away from The Jesus Papers this Easter, then, well, there is no God."

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Thomas Thompson: The Incompetent Faithful

In the last of Alan Bandy's interviews on faith-based and secular scholarship, Thomas Thompson says bluntly:

"To the extent that a university scholar accepts the guiding principles of a specific faith, he or she is incompetent in the performance of their work as scholars. To the extent that an institution presupposes such a commitment, it is, I believe, incompetent as a university... In my experience, secular theology or university scholarship in the field of biblical scholarship is incompatible with the premises of a faith-based scholarship, which belongs to the realm of apologetics, a pursuit which may have some legitimacy within the context of a particular faith community, but which in the public or 'secular' sphere is inappropriate to both the civil service role of the university professor -- and in direct conflict with open and critical scholarly discourse."

Chris Heard retorted here, and I too disagree with Thompson, if for no other reason because faith-based scholars (yes, even evangelicals) have proven themselves entirely capable of engaging the historical critical task. As I said before, faith-based scholars can be inclined to receive history where the secular prefers not to, and vice-versa.

That's why I still like John Meier's vision of an "unpapal conclave": a Catholic, Protestant, Jew, and agnostic who have been "locked in the bowels of Harvard Divinity School, put on a spartan diet, and not allowed to emerge until they had hammered out a consensus document on who Jesus was and what he intended in his own time and place" (A Marginal Jew, Vol I, p 1). Last fall Stephen Carlson suggested improving on this by adding an evangelical, Unitarian, and atheist to the mix (see biblioblogs.com, October interview). Well, I liked Stephen's idea so much that I decided to put it into practice. For the last month there has been an "unpapal conclave" busy at work assessing the historical Jesus. I'll have more to report about this later, but for now simply wish to register my disappointment with what Thompson advocates -- and with his sweeping judgments on "faith-based incompetence" -- which can only lead to tunnel vision. Perhaps it is this sort of attitude which gives secular scholarship a bad name in some quarters.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

The Simplicity of Christianity

"[Wright] shows how the God of Christianity can bring real justice, true spirituality, genuine relationships, and awesome beauty by answering simply yet profoundly most of the key questions associated with Christian systematic theology... Wright accomplishes exactly what the title of his book suggests: he presents Christianity as the straightforward and uncomplicated answer to so many of life's most complex and difficult problems." (LJ, 4/1/06, pp 101-102)

I'm glad to see that Wright has solved the world's problems for us in the space of 250 pages. If only real answers came this simple. It's tempting to wax rude about the simple-mindedness of such an approach, but it could be the reviewer who is presenting things rather artificially here. So I'll kindly desist. Good old Wright...

A Song of Ice and Fire: Update

On "Not a Blog", George Martin mentions a new title he has settled on for the seventh book in his series: A Dream of Spring. (Instead of A Time for Wolves.) Let's see, that should be out... in another 15 years or so. He also explains why he left out some of the crucial characters in the recent fourth book, A Feast for Crows -- probably a good decision in the long run, despite the fury of so many fans.

So here's what the completed Song of Ice and Fire series will look like:

1. A Game of Thrones ('96)2. A Clash of Kings ('98)3. A Storm of Swords ('00)4. A Feast for Crows ('05)5. A Dance with Dragons ('10)6. The Winds of Winter (?)7. A Dream of Spring (?)

What a landmark this will be when finished. George Martin and Stephen Donaldson are the only fantasy authors I bother reading anymore. They seem to be the only popular writers who can tell a story on their own terms, with more originality than everyone else in the genre combined.

This time of year puts me in mind of Harold Love's rather harsh view of those at the giving and receiving end of literary fakes. I read his book a few months after finishing Stephen Carlson's Gospel Hoax. This is what Love has to say about foolers and the fooled:

"Faking is the cancer of scholarship. The apropriate punishment for fakers should be public execution, with a last-minute interruption when a reprieve is brought to the gallows, only to be disregarded when it is discovered to be a fake. Likewise there is nothing amusing in the fact that a fellow scholar may have been misled by a fake: it is a sign of incompetence and dereliction in the individual concerned." (Attributing Authorship, pp 192-193)

For the public execution part, Love footnotes Roman Polanski's film, The Ninth Gate, the conclusion of which apparently involves something like this (p 250). I might have to check that one out. (Polanski's Pianist was excellent.) But Love will just have to pardon my sense of humor. Hoaxes like Secret Mark and the Ern Malley poems are a riot.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

The Top Films of 2005

After catching up on some DVD releases, I'm ready to rate my favorite films from last year.

1. Palindromes. Loved or despised among critics, this satire on abortion wins my heart for the year. A thirteen-year old girl is forced to have an abortion by her mother, then runs away to join a family whose patriarch kills abortion doctors. It's open season on the pro-life and pro-choice crowds equally, suggesting both sides wind up at square one, mired in hypocrisy and contradictions.

2. Batman Begins. Christopher Nolan's revisionist approach to Batman, not to mention the whole superhero genre, is what we've been waiting for. Here are all the gritty origins: Bruce Wayne's ninjitsu training in the Himalayas, his phobia of bats, his guilt over the murder of his parents, all of which set him on the course to "save" Gotham City as a a vigilante. As good as this film is -- and it's very good -- it's only setting the stage for a much greater sequel, The Dark Knight.

3. Crash. A parable of racism, in which everyone is both guilty of and victimized by it. Like Palindromes it doesn't anchor us in a comfortable morality, is all the more progressive for it, and gets better with subsequent viewings. Granted the world is too small: characters run into each other too repeatedly for coincidence sake. But the film functions as a parable in this way, and for whatever reason it doesn't smack of lazy scriptwriting.

4. Mouth to Mouth. A Canadian indie about a rebellious teen, Sherry, who joins a gang while living on the streets of Europe. Based on the director's actual experience with gangs, it portrays a manipulative leader seducing but ultimately alienating Sherry, yet who incredibly succeeds in brainwashing her mother when she comes to rescue her. Ellen Page forecasts her future success in this much overlooked gem.

5. New World. There is a stunning aesthetic here, in the way of all Malick's films, though in a historical treatment of Pocahontas that somewhat distracts: nature is the main character here. But it does an excellent job rescuing Pocahontas from sissified Disney versions; and most commendably, this isn't a slam against the White Man, nor a condescending, racist reverence for fantasy "noble savages" (who must nonetheless be saved by a whitey who grows to loathe himself -- per Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, Avatar, ad nauseum).

6. A History of Violence. David Cronenberg's take on "survival of the fittest" in a mob context, suggesting that peace can be purchased only, ultimately, with violence. Viggo Mortenson's character is a bit too superhero, but the characters are otherwise convincing, and it's probably Cronenberg's best film to date -- certainly his most thoughtful.

7. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. As much as I despise C.S. Lewis' Narnian books I have to give Andrew Adamson credit. Forget the Christian allegory, and never mind the fact that the Pevensie kids are snotty brats (aside from Lucy); this is a well done fantasy, much better than the Harry Potter films and indeed most children's fantasy. Reviewed here.

8. Mysterious Skin. A drama about two teenage boys who were molested as kids and now cope with their trauma in different ways, one by repression of memory, the other by prostituting himself to old men. You might feel the need to wash your brain out with soap after you watch this, but it does examine filthy issues for the right reasons. Watching the "five dollar bill" scene (where the baseball coach tells two little boys whoever can fist him up the ass the farthest gets the bill, and they proceed to do exactly that) was like getting punched in the gut.

9. The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Told through flashbacks in a courtroom setting, where a priest is on trial for treating a college girl's dementia as demonic possession and letting her die. From an objective view, she seems to have had epilepsy which the exorcism might have cured (psychosomatically) if drugs hadn't blocked the process. The film doesn't push the supernatural on us, though there's enough ambiguity preserved to let the viewer decide.

10. King Kong. While I have mixed feelings about the middle part (Skull Island), the first and third acts of Peter Jackson's remake are the ingredients of classic tragedy. The final act has my palms sweating every time I see it (I have serious vertigo issues). Only the director of Lord of the Rings could offer so much action and soul at the same time, though again, he's starting to get out of hand with the former -- some of the Skull Island sequences are way too over the top.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Biblical Studies Carnival IV

Welcome to the fourth Biblical Studies Carnival. Thanks to the organizational skills of Tyler Williams, these carnivals have become monthly treats, a great way to glean the best of the biblio-blogposts you may not have had time for, or just want to revisit. So sit back and enjoy the ride, as we backpeddle through thirty-one days of rousing commentary. Who says we can't relive the past?

One of the above scholars, Peter Williams, conducted his own interview with translator Dan Wallace on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog. It's a lengthy interview, well worth reading, addressing how relevant theological presuppositions have become in the field of textual criticism.

Meanwhile, in the background of this and more, Danny Zacharias of Deinde has continued updating his Blogger Cooler Roundup of "Faith and Scholarship" begun in February. This is a good place to go for a ready guide to all the comments, observations, and interviews about faith-based and secular scholarship.

Archaeology

Chris Heard of Higgaion received a letter from Paul Iversen regarding the Tel Zayit abecedary, and with trademark caution agrees that there's much to be skeptical about here. Read the letter in Paul Iversen on the Tel Zayit "abecedary": the author raises serious objections against what Ron Tappy has made of the so-called abecedarium, and as expected, the spectre of the minimalist-maximalist debate hovers in the background.

Two bloggers have continued working on two gospels, challenging assumptions about their Judaic/anti-Judaic underpinnings. Richard Anderson, Kratistos Theophilos, argues that Luke's use of certain technical terms shows that he was a Jewish author writing for a Jewish audience in Precision Time Markers. On the other side of things, Chris Weimer of Thoughts on Antiquity believes that Matthew's Judaic leanings are an illusion and that he was supersessionist; check out The Sins of Jesus.

Mark Goodacre of NT Gateway entered the discussion in Jesus, Torah, Sanders, Hengel, and Deines, clarifying what E.P. Sanders' has meant by referring to a "common Judaism", and also mentioning an important article written by Paula Fredriksen which distinguishes between including and converting Gentiles in light of eschatology.

Don't miss other lively points of interest, like Mike Sangrey's presentation of chiastic structures on the Exegetitor blog. In Chiasmus in Exegesis he illustrates the importance of these forms with an example from John 6.

If bibliobloggers aren't vulgar and graphic enough, Stephen Carlson of Hypotyposeis at least got graphic with Power Law in Biblical Citations, showing how online citations of each verse in Gal 2:1-21 follow a power curve. Stephen suggested that curves like this help us identify our "canons within canons". That's pretty neat.

Ever hear that law codes were intellectual exercises? Ken Ristau of Anduril says that's how the laws of ancient Mesopotamia should be understood -- as modes of scientific inquiry, given the lack of evidence for statutory significance; see Law Codes in the ANE. Ken also responded to economic historian Karl Polanyi's view of ancient economies in Markets in the ANE, challenging the idea that such economies were exclusively palace-dominated redistribution systems.

Resurrection buffs will be happy to see that Christopher Petersen of Resurrection Dogmatics just joined the blogosphere. Be sure to read his Task of Reinterpretation, in which he lends a sympathetic ear to the inventive strategies used by millenarian movements to cope with failure.

Biblical Studies Carnival V will be hosted by Kevin Wilson at Karamat in the first week of May, 2006. Look for a call for submissions on his blog sometime in the middle of April.

Submissions for blog entries posted in the month of April should be emailed to biblical_studies_carnival AT hotmail DOT com, or entered via the submission form at BlogCarnival.com. For more information, consult the Biblical Studies Carnival Homepage.

Thanks for taking a ride through the fourth carnival! I hope it was worth your time.

April Fool's Quiz

How good is your hoax-radar? Try the following April Fool's Day Quiz. (It takes a little while for this page to load, but don't worry, it will.) The quiz presents sixteen claims that have been made in the media: eight real news stories, and eight April Fool's jokes. See if you can tell which is which.

Guesswork and hunches earned me 12 out of 16, so I guess my attenae aren't too bad. I'd sure like to see Stephen Carlson's score!

9. Solomon -- fooled two women to get the truth about the identity of a child (I Kings 3:16-28).

10. Jezebel -- fooled people into believing that Naboth had cursed God and King Ahab (I Kings 21:1-16).

Notice that Farquhar lists only Hebrew Bible figures and no one from the New Testament. This unfortunately reinforces (however unintentionally) the old idea of an inferior Judaic past supplanted by a better Christian way of doing things. And that's what so many people today are really fooled by: this notion that Jesus supposedly taught about more honest and truthful ways. But lying and deception remained as common as acceptable as ever before.

To the above list we could add Jesus himself (Jn 7:1-10), who lied and fooled his brothers into believing that he wasn't going to Jerusalem when he did. Or God (II Thess 2:11-12), whom according to Paul fools people with delusions, "leading them to believe lies", precisely "so that they will be condemned". Or James and Peter (Gal 2:1-14), who tricked Paul into an agreement which they had no intention of keeping (on which see more here). In the culture of the bible -- whether Judaic or Christian -- deceiving people is honorable, and not considered "really lying", since it deprives enemies of the respect to which they have no right as rivals. By the same token, lying to friends can be honorable if if it makes them feel good and gives them the face they deserve as friends. That's the honor-shame culture, and honor-shame didn't go away with the early Christians. See more here.